Li is not some down-on-his-luck
life-science casualty of a
poor economy, though. Quite to the contrary, he is the founder, chairman, CEO
and chief medical officer of Boston Biomedical Inc. (BBI), a private
biotechnology
company with a clinical-stage product pipeline targeting cancer
stem cells based in Norwood, Mass. So why is he subsisting on a minimum-wage
salary?

By choice.

In 2006, when Li learned that he and
about 30 other
employees of ArQule Inc. were on the chopping block
due to a company
restructuring, Li decided to take a major leap of faith. He approached ArQule's
executives with a novel idea: He would form a new
company that would, via an
eight-month, $5 million contract with ArQule, perform the early research work
that ArQule no longer wanted to handle. Li
would use that $5 million to start
BBI and give jobs to the nearly three-dozen employees facing layoffs—saving
ArQule significant costs, negative media
reports and shareholder disappointment
in the process.

"It truly was a win-win situation," Li
tells me. "Still, the
idea made sense, but no one had ever done this before," he concedes. "We were
not going to be a spinoff, so there was some
concern about who was going to
lead the new company. I volunteered myself to lead this initiative."

BBI successfully completed its outsourcing contract with
ArQule, but there were other challenges waiting in the wings. By late 2008, the
economic recession hit with full force. BBI temporarily downsized its
employees, but then hired them all back—and to ensure that no one lost a job,
Li cut his own salary down to minimum wage.

"It was a tough time to be an entrepreneur," admits
Li, who
lived on this meager salary for five years, until last month when the
unexpected happened: Top Japanese pharma Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd.
(DSP), with whom BBI had an exclusive product option
license agreement for the
development of a cancer stemness inhibitor program in Japan, swooped in to
acquire BBI for a cool $2.6 billion (see "Pharma pink-slippers find pot of gold,
"
on our cover this month).

"To be honest, we were not looking to be acquired—we were
just mainly focusing on product innovation," Li says. "But after partnering
with us on BBI608, the team liked what they saw, not just from the
program's
data, but also with how BBI operates. Our teams collaborate so well together,
so an M&A felt very natural. We came to the conclusion
that teaming up with
DSP was a good idea because of its resources, expertise in other areas and
track record would help us accelerate this program.
"

All BBI employees get to keep their jobs when the
acquisition closes, and with $2.6 billion in the
can, Li can probably give
himself a much-deserved raise—but he laughs, "truthfully, right now I am too
busy to think about getting my salary back.
"

Knowing what he knows now, would Li have done anything
differently?

"If I had to do this all over again, I might be more scared.
If I knew that one year later, the recession would hit, I
probably wouldn't do
it," he admits. "But sometimes, the best solution is to take a risk. Sometimes,
the risk is not taking a risk. From an
executive's standpoint, I am excited
because we have created a world-leading portfolio that provides a new direction
for cancer stem cell treatment.
From a business manager's standpoint, I'm glad
things worked out so that no one was out of a job. The moral to our story is
that this provides an
example of what can be done."

And a biotech story with a happy ending is something we can
all enjoy.